(Freedom.news) Our founding fathers understood that no matter how many amendments recognizing and guaranteeing basic liberties were ultimately ratified by the states, Americans would not be truly free unless they were also economically enabled. That’s one of main reasons why they chose a capitalist economic system, because it rewards hard work, innovation and dedication to quality in trade and craft. In short, economic independence is empowering.

Today, legislatures and governors in three states have pledged to rekindle the founding entrepreneurial spirit in their citizens by dramatically reforming their food stamp programs.

Under President Obama’s big government policies, the U.S. economy has stagnated. Obama is the first president who has not had a single quarter of 3 percent growth in GDP – not one. Recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09, such as it is, has been the longest one in modern history. If George W. Bush owned his economy as Obama said he did, then the current president certainly owns this economy.

The lack of growth and opportunity, in addition to lowering qualification standards for assistance, has led to an explosion in the country’s welfare and food stamp rolls. When former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Obama the “food stamp president,” he was spot-on.

Three states – Maine, Kansas and Indiana – have moved to reverse the trend.

Each of them has re-implemented a work requirement passed initially by Gingrich’s Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in the latter 1990s. Nicknamed “workfare,” the law was responsible for a dramatic decrease in the number of Americans receiving government food and other benefits because it required anyone getting assistance to have a job.

But shortly before Obama was reelected, he had his bureaucracy render the requirement moot and, predictably, welfare and food stamp rolls soared.

That’s because Obama and big government regressives (not progressives like they claim) would rather Americans be dependent on Uncle Sam for their subsistence; dependency breeds compliance, buys loyalty and destroys individual liberty.

In Maine, as reported by the Daily Signal, one of the most proactive workfare reform states, its caseload for able-bodied adults without dependents decreased 80 percent within just a few moths of reestablishing the requirement.

Kansas, meanwhile, has experienced similar results. As its caseload decreased 75 percent, the state has also seen a rise in employment and earnings for able-bodied adults sans dependents.

In Indiana, there have also been similar results after the state reinstated work requirements in July 2015. Within a half-a-year, the state’s caseload fell 68 percent.

These are real, tangible results that not only allow these states to use savings for other necessities like infrastructure, but they empower adults to become productive members of society again and lift themselves out of their cycle of dependency. We all hear stories about “welfare queens” and “welfare kings” but the reality is, most Americans want to work because they don’t want to be dependent on government and self-limiting in their success.

That unsettles the big government types who empower themselves by enslaving others.

Freedom is more than just the liberties contained in the Bill of Rights. It is also the freedom to be all you can be, achieve all you can achieve, through economic independence.

More:

• The 10th Amendment Is Completely Null And Void As We Have Become A Nation Of Courts, Not Laws And Rights
• We Can’t Afford Another Four Years Of Obama
• Donald Trump A Racist? Actually, Trump Has Always Fought For True Equality, Unlike The Left

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